PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Fred Lincoln Wray Jr. was born in Dunn, North Carolina in 1929. Of Native American descent, his family had to hide from the Ku Klux Klan several times before eventually moving to Portsmouth, Virginia. It is here where Wray grew up, enlisted in the Army, started his own family and started his music career under the name Link Wray.
“He started his career right here in Portsmouth, Virginia,” his daughter Beth Ray Webb told 10 On Your Side. “He played music and delivered groceries.”
Webb is keeping his story alive. A lot of her old photos were lost in a house fire, but she showed us one that made it out, in which you see a young Link Wray with his bandmates of the time at Randall Studio in Portsmouth…